BRIAN SIBLEY : his blog

Friday, 2 February 2018

Democracy gave bird-land a parliament of owls Where debate is conducted in hoots and in howls; Their voting system is really a sight: Eyes to the left and eyes to the right, And their party political tweetings and twittings Account for their numerous all-night sittings.

Monday, 25 December 2017

From the creator of Mary Poppins, P L Travers, a mystical story about that first Christmas and a surprising gift brought to the manger by an unlikely gift-giver.The Fox and the Manger, which I dramatised for radio in 1990, stars Dame Wendy Hiller and Alec McCowen with Richard Pearce and Cast...

Sunday, 24 December 2017

I, as you all must know by now, love (correction – am obsessed by) Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Each of the story's five 'Staves' has its wonderful evocative scenes – the haunting of Jacob Marley, the bittersweet memories of Christmas Past, the glorious peregrinations of Christmas Present (especially the Cratchit family's humble Christmas dinner) and the terrifying shadows of Christmas Future, but I am particularly fond of the last section in which Scrooge the miser is 'born again'. Dickens called this section – the denouement of his fable – "The End of It".

Here is that conclusion as presented on stage in 2003 by The Lansbury Players in my adaptation. You will hear Richard Holliss as Ebenezer Scrooge; Cody Barthram as the Boy on Christmas Morning and John Wain as the Poulterer; Chris Holliss and Di Barber as the Charity Collectors; Noel O'Callaghan as Nephew Fred and Joyce Gambles as his wife, Rose; Keith Cummings as Bob Cratchit and Yours Truly as Mr Charles Dickens with the ensemble cast. The songs and original music were by Nick Clark and the production directed by Dave Millard.

So here it is –– the blissful transition from despair to hope of which the true spirit of Christmas speaks to us still...

"On", as Mr Dickens puts it, "of all the good days in the year – Christmas Eve": here is the story of how the world's best-loved Christmas book came to be written and what happened to it afterwards...

HUMBUG! was first broadcast 1993, this is a revised & extended version of a programme originally broadcast in 1987. Told by me (in those far off days when I was still a BBC voice) it features Norman Bird, Diana Olson and more Scrooges and Marleys than you can rattle a chain at!